I was having an interesting chat with a
Grantham buy to let landlord the other day when the subject of size of
households came up in conversation. For
those of you who read my Brexit article published on the morning after the
referendum, one of the reasons on why I thought the Grantham property market would,
in the medium to long term, be OK, was the fact that the size of households in
the 21st Century was getting smaller – which would create demand for
Grantham Property and therefore keep property prices from dropping.
Looking at the stats going back to the
early 1960’s, when the average number of people in a home was exactly 3, it has
steadily over the years dropped by a fifth to today’s figure of 2.4 people per
household. Doesn’t sound a lot, but if the population remained at the same
level for the next 50 years and the we had the same 20% drop in household size,
the UK would need to build an additional 5.28 million properties ( or 105,769
per year) .. When you consider the Country is only building 139,800 properties
a year ... it doesn’t leave much for people living longer and immigration.
Looking closer to home...
In the
South Kesteven District Council area, the average
number
of occupants per household is 2.3 people
When we look at the current picture
nationally and split it down into tenure types (i.e. owned, council houses and
private renting, a fascinating picture appears.
The vast majority of homeowners who
don’t have a mortgage are occupied by one or two people (81% in fact), although
this can be explained as residents being older, with some members
of the family having moved out, or a pensioner living alone. People living on their own are more likely to
live in a Council house (43%) and the largest households (those with 4 or more
people living in them are homeowners with a mortgage – but again, that can be
explained as homeowners with families tend to need a mortgage to buy. What
surprised me was the even spread of private rented households and how that
sector of population are so evenly spread across the occupant range – in fact
that sector is the closest to the national average, even though they only
represent a sixth of the population.
When we look at the South Kesteven
District Council figures for all tenures (Owned, Council and Private Rented) a
slightly different picture appears...
|
1 person households in Grantham
|
2 person households in Grantham
|
3 person households In Grantham
|
4 person households in Grantham
|
5+ person households in Grantham
|
|
27.20%
|
39.13%
|
15.75%
|
12.95%
|
4.97%
|
But it gets even more interesting when we focus on
just private rental properties in Grantham, as it is the rental market in Grantham
that really fascinates me. When I analysed those South
Kesteven District Council private rental household composition figures, a slightly
different picture appears. Of the 7,653 Private rental properties in the South Kesteven District Council area,
·
32.6% of Private Rental Properties are
1 person Households
·
34.4% of Private Rental Properties are
2 person Households
·
18.0% of Private Rental Properties are
3 person Households
·
10.1% of Private Rental Properties are
4 person Households
·
4.7% of Private Rental Properties are
5+ person Households
